Robin Whatley
Associate Dean of Academic Operations and Programming
Associate Professor
rwhatley@colum.eduBiography
Robin Whatley is a vertebrate paleontologist who works on the early evolution and diversification of terrestrial animals such as turtles, lizards, mammals, dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and other vertebrates that originated in the Middle to Late Triassic Period (230 – 200 million years ago). She is associate professor in the Department of Science and Mathematics, and has an active field research program in the Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona, where she also takes Columbia students to learn about fossils and paleontology field methods. As associate dean of the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Robin coordinates all aspects of the School’s curriculum, is director of the Honors Program, and manages the administration and scheduling of the First-semester Experience (also affectionately known as “Big Chicago”) courses and faculty. She has a background in the fine arts with a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute. Exhibit preparation and design experience at The Field Museum and an interest in natural history and evolution led her to pursue a PhD in vertebrate paleontology and remote sensing at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Robin holds Research Associate positions at The Field Museum in Chicago and at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History (the latter where she was awarded a Postdoctoral Fellowship to work on the diversification of the earliest mammals), and has conducted museum and field research in places as far-flung as Argentina, Zambia, and Madagascar.
Instructional Areas
First-semester Experience; Vertebrate Paleontology; Mammal Evolution; Dinosaur Evolution and Extinction; Physical Geology; Historical Geology; Natural Disasters; Paleontology Field Observation and Methods.
Creative Practice and Research Interests
Evolution, diversification, and paleoecology of small vertebrates living on land in the early Mesozoic Era (~200 million years ago); teaching and learning in museums and natural environments; using art to promote science literacy, especially about the history of life.
Degrees
B.F.A., Sculpture Kansas City Art Institute 1988
Ph.D., Geological Sciences University of California Santa Barbara 2005